Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Warm greetings to all from California. And I do mean warm – today is sunny, with temperatures in the high 60s, and it’s expected to reach 78 tomorrow. Hard to beat. My weather app informs me that it’s in the 40s back home in Maine, which also seems unseasonably warm, but I see it is headed back to the 20s and 30s later in the week. My neighbors there have sent us pictures of mountains of snow, tossed up by the plow, in front of our house.

Winter Beach Walk

I added Winter Beach Walk to my website’s California collection this month. It shows a family walking at the beach in winter sunshine. They are fully clothed, there is no one else in sight down the strand, and the strong, pale light of early afternoon casts stark shadows.  I had the idea for this from my own walks by the sea in San Clemente. While the beaches in this popular area are never truly deserted, there are in fact times in winter when comparatively few people are about. Another nice feature of winter is the presence of clouds, which lends the skies more color, nuance and variety than in summer. And regardless of the season, the palm trees bend and, with nodding mops, vouchsafe approval to the breeze. 

 Old Quarter, Constantine

A friend stopped by the house today, and remarked that he liked one of my older watercolors, of the Old Quarter in the city of Constantine, northeast Algeria.  I realized when he left that I had not yet added this painting to my website, a defect that I have now remedied. Constantine is one of the great sights to see in Algeria.  Its dramatic location on a rocky outcropping over the deep gorge of the Rhumel River induced the French writer Alexandre Dumas to call it "fantastic . . . something like Gulliver's flying island".

 In May 2010, at the end of a working visit, I was driving through one of the oldest quarters of town. We had just experienced a violent spring thunderstorm, and the clouds were breaking up. Suddenly I felt an eerie change of light. Glancing up, I saw a remarkable set of dark purple clouds churning against a peach-colored sky. The dark, beetling purple of these clouds was unlike any cloud color I have ever seen, before or since. I grabbed a quick photo. When we returned to Algiers I made this painting while the scene and colors were still fresh in my memory.  

Situated about 50 miles inland from the Mediterranean coast, ancient Cirta occupied a virtually impregnable defensive position over the Wadi Rhumel, and was both a strategic and commercial center. It became one of the most important towns of ancient Numidia and was later capital of the Roman province of the same name. Under Julius Caesar the city acquired the privileged formal status and special rights of a Roman colony, Colonia Sittlanorum. Although the Romans destroyed the city after a revolt in 311 AD, two years later it was rebuilt by the Constantine the Great and renamed in his honor. The city's formidable defenses protected it against the invasion of the Vandals, but it fell to the Arabs in the 7th century. In the Ottoman period, Constantine enjoyed renewed prosperity and was an important dependency of the Dey of Algiers before falling to the French in 1837. In 1942-43 it again proved its strategic value as a command base for the Allied campaign in North Africa. Constantine is now the third largest city in Algeria after Algiers and Oran.

AFSA FS Artists Showcase

Due to a family illness I was unable to travel as planned to the February 6 exhibit and reception hosted by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) for Foreign Service artists. But five of my paintings went as scheduled, from both California and Maine, and my old friend Ambassador Steve Seche was kind enough to deliver remarks I had prepared for the occasion.  

This was a new event at AFSA headquarters but was modeled on a similar one done by the organization each year for FS writers. The inaugural was introduced by AFSA President Ambassador Eric Rubin, and included works by former FS members Rosemarie Forsythe, Cynthia Farrell Johnson, Judy Buelow, and me.  I am grateful to Steve Seche for representing me so ably, as well as to Eric Rubin, Julie Nutter, and everyone on the AFSA team who helped make the event a success. A number of my friends attended and I got lots of positive feedback and photos.  So I hope AFSA will be encouraged to do it again. I submitted five paintings for the two-hour show, and one of them – Kuwait Water Carrier and Donkey – sold. I was delighted to see this particular work, one of my favorites, go to the home of a good Foreign Service colleague who, like me, spent many years working in and on the Middle East. 

Best wishes to all,

David